Under the Dome,Under the Influence of Stephen King and a Beagle Named Toby

Updated on December 4, 2009

Under the Dome

I have not written a hub since November 17th! There are several reasons but one I find troubling: Stephen King. He is one of my favorite authors. When I found he had published a new book I rushed out to get it. Under the Dome is a huge novel. It is 1072 pages of Stephen King brilliance and I am about 3/4 of the way through it. If you like King, you will love this book. I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, I have found myself somewhat depressed. I have also realized that his last book caused the same reaction. I am not talking "Pass me the Jack Daniels" depressed,"Ride my Motorcycle in the Rain" depressed, and certainly not the "End of the World" kind of depressed. Just bummed, really, And I know part of it is that King tends to write novels where the wrong people die. I guess that says more about me than it does about him.

The book is actually 1074 pages long because Stevie has added a note to me at the end, as he often does. Okay, it is not to me but to "Constant Reader". Same thing , really. It occurs to me that perhaps I should challenge him. Yikes!

I would like to see him write a humorous book. I know he is capable of this because in Under the Dome he kills a guy on a tractor and then makes me laugh out loud at the next sentence! Besides it would give the Constant Reader a little break. Everybody doesn't have Hubpages, granddaughters, and puppies to get them back on track.

Toby the Beagle

On a different note, we have a new puppy. Toby is about 8 months old and is apparently capable of chewing a hole in the deflector shield of a galaxy-class starship! He has chewed up toys (his), shoes (mine), and the car cover on a 1995 Thunderbird(also mine).

I have given him 4 rawhide chews, about a dozen bones and several pig ears (the pigs were not too happy about that- so please don't tell PETA!). He chews all those, but he prefers anything I value. This morning while I was blowing a couple of million leaves off the driveway, he started chewing the extension cord on my leaf blower! I screamed like some kind of lunatic, the neighbors called 911 and Toby ran away. But of course he came back. He always comes back... with puppy amnesia.

But here is the worst of it : The little expletive deleted hates Christmas!

My wife won't let me decorate the front of the house for Christmas but I do get to decorate my shop in the back every year. In honor of Elvis, I deck it out in blue lights. I put a tree with blue lights on the porch, string blue icicles around the whole roof and add more each year. It is a small redneck version of Graceland in Carolina. "Decorations of red, on a green Christmas tree........" Kind of makes you want to tear up just thinking about it.

Toby has chewed up the lights three times and this is just the second day!

This afternoon I put new lights up and sprayed all around the base of the tree with some kind of pepper spray for dogs. Toby watched as I used the "mist" option on the bottle to spray the actual tree and lights and while doing this I got caught in a cross wind. I screamed like some kind of lunatic, the neighbors called 911, and I think Toby ran away. My eyes were swollen shut so I can't be sure. On the bright side Toby finally left the tree alone.

Tonight, while working on this hub I realized the lights were not burning and walked out to check on the tree. I found Toby on the patio wearing a sombraro and a poncho, with a chewed up string of blue lights in the corner of his mouth, whistling the theme song from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Comments 4 comments

It looks like you are going to have a lot of future adventures with little Toby! Keep 'em Comin'

resspenser 7 years ago from South Carolina Author

Thanks, Don. I appreciate you reading and the comment. Toby is a handful!

janiek13 7 years ago from Florida's Space Coast

oh, how funny. Toby seems like quite a character. Fyi, I am a big fan of Stephen King also. I have never met Mickey Spillane, but I have met Bill Clinton, in Key West.

resspenser 7 years ago from South Carolina Author

Thanks, janiek13. Meeting "famous" people is interesting. I met Spillane the first time at his home in Murrels Inlet and he was sitting in his kitchen filling out some kind of order form on the back of a box of Frosted Flakes!